Nine French Regional Councils Ask for Country-by-Country Reporting from Financial Partners

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The nine regional councils will ask for country-by-country reports from their banks and insurers. This will include the following details: Name and number of subsidiaries; numbers of staff employed; profits and amounts of taxes paid. This information should be provided by the company six months after its annual report is published. This information is invaluable in calculating whether a company is paying its fair share of tax in each country. The precedent this sets is very important as the EU is currently considering introducing country-by-county reporting.

The Comite Catholique Contre La Faim et Pour Le Developpment (CCFD) has been instrumental in the campaign and is now helping the councils implement these measures.

A further six councils asked financial partners to declare any involvement they have in non-cooperative jurisdictions and the French official list of tax havens. Two more have broadly declared their desire to combat tax havens.

This the product of the ‘Stop Tax Havens’ campaign, launched in September 2009 by CCFD-Terre Solidaire, Oxfam France, ATTAC, and French Trade Unions (CGT, CFDT, SNUI, Solidaires) and the French platform against tax havens. The campaign made use of the regional elections in 2010, mobilizing supporters to write to their representatives. The first success came last year when the Paris regional council passed resolution calling for country by country reporting by banks.

See map of which regional councils are involved.